This is the first installment of a four-part series on the hidden Ps that support the Seven Ps of the Phoenix Sales Method.
June 02, 2021
Since the beginning of 2021, many Maestro Mastery blog posts have focused on our information-gathering framework, DRIVE. Asking great questions is essential for sales professionals, because a lack of information is the number one risk in sales.
True professionalism, however, isn’t limited to the time you spend on the phone. That’s why Maestro’s original training and coaching focused on the Phoenix Sales Method: seven practices, memorialized as the Seven Ps, that guide sales excellence and personal growth.
Over the years, Maestro sales coaches and trainers have realized that there is at least one additional “P.” In order to get great at each of the Seven Ps, you need to practice! Inspired by this hidden, eighth P, the Mastery blog this month is going to explore not one but THREE hidden Ps. They aren’t on the Phoenix list, but they guide everything we do.
Music teachers and youth sports coaches have an endless list of old sayings to encourage people to practice.
It looks like there’s a theme, right? Perfectionism. Now, there are some things to be said for wanting to be perfect. The quotation about practicing until you can’t get it wrong makes a very good point about preparation levels. It’s much better to go into a demo with a TED-talk level of comfort with your materials rather than to have done the presentation correctly just once or twice.
However, for the most part, the fact that practice is associated in a lot of people’s minds with perfectionism is really doing practice a disservice. Perfectionism, today, is not an esteemed trait. Instead, psychologists have found that it is more effective, both in terms of performance and happiness, to encourage a growth mindset and grit than to encourage a goal of perfection that may or may not be possible or within a person’s control.
You have undoubtedly heard of the 10,000 hour rule, which Malcolm Gladwell popularized with his book Outliers. His theory was that, on average, those who reach the highest level of success in their fields of excellence have practiced ten thousand hours to get there.
Now, much research since then has revealed that while 10,000 hours may be a handy rule of thumb to help people realize how much effort goes into nurturing a gift into full-blown success. But it is not actually a scientific fact that putting in ten thousand hours will make you a master of anything.
Research into top athletes and chess players, for example, found that the amount of practice only explained 20-25% of their success; more powerful factors included how young they started learning their game and certain innate ability levels. Doing too much of a training activity at a time can actually cause fatigue and lower the speed of skill acquisition.
So, if you are trying to master a new skill or gain elite status in a skill you’re just okay at, what can you make of all these claims? First of all, know that practice is good, but it’s best if you break it up into small chunks. This is why my kids’ music teacher asks new instrumentalists to practice for seven minutes every day rather than the twenty minutes, three times a week, that I remember from my youth. Daily small efforts avoid the fatigue problem while allowing you to build up a habit of continuously reinforcing learning.
Second, regardless of whether you target 7 minutes a day or 10,000 hours a day (hint: if the latter is your goal, take a step back and begin with 7 minutes a day of math practice), some types of practice are more effective than others.
Classic psychology research conducted at the Max Planck Institute in the 1990s explored the value of deliberate practice. Lead author K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues defined deliberate practice as practice that is guided by an instructor and embarked on intentionally, outside of paid work. It is structured, and involves focused attention. It is not designed around enjoyment, but around identifying and solving weaknesses.
That’s a pretty long list of characteristics. But the researchers found that they were necessary for the practice to have the greatest impact on performance. This approach to practice informs Maestro’s 40/20 rule: the concept that you should spend 20 hours outside each typical workweek on professional growth. Seeking out a coach is a great way to make those hours count, as is holding yourself accountable to find areas where you need to improve.
Making practice “deliberate” is not the only way to amp up its impact. You can also use physiological cues to help with learning retention. For example, numerous studies have demonstrated that writing things down leads to better learning than typing them. Taking the time to think about how you would organize your knowledge about a prospect, and then writing note cards on the most important information, will make it more likely that you remember the info and don’t even need the notecards!
Beyond writing, anything you can do to bring more of your body into the process of practice will help to ingrain the learning. As you prepare a video presentation, stand up in front of your camera and watch your gestures on Zoom. Do they help emphasize what you’re saying, or distract from it?
Motivation is the single most important factor determining whether you will succeed at the goal you are trying to achieve through practice. Sometimes, naturally, the motivation will be missing!
Various strategies can help you stay motivated. For example: try a new approach to learning; take a break; set a small reward for achieving a new learning or practicing a certain number of days in a row. The last example is the idea behind gamification. Even virtual badges can have a large motivating effect.
Best of all? Mutual accountability. If you have coworkers who are also trying to grow professionally, hold one another accountable for regular practice. Congratulate one another for your successes, and also for your perseverance!
The sales profession involves many different tasks which you can practice in order to improve. These include product-level understanding, communication skills such as confident email and voicemail, and presenting demos. Perhaps most important is the skill of asking great questions. Maestro recommends the use of question trees to practice navigating through discovery conversations so that you are ready for whatever the prospect throws at you.
Ready for sales coaching, or just interested in learning more about the Seven Ps? Contact mastery@maestrogroup.co.
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